


Not Tonight

by god_commissioned_me



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Couch Cuddles, F/F, First Date, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote this in One Sitting Please Forgive Me, Sasha James Deserved Better, more than friends, no beta we die like men, polaroids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24226768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/god_commissioned_me/pseuds/god_commissioned_me
Summary: "We always think of places as haunted. But the more I think about it, maybe that’s not quite right? At least not always? I mean, we never hear about a ghost alone. They’re always found by a person, aren’t they? That’s how we know about them. That's how they're... remembered."A collection of snapshots of the brief almost-relationship between Sasha James and Melanie King.
Relationships: Sasha James/Melanie King
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Not Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> me: has one alcoholic beverage  
> me: listens to "i lost a friend" by finneas  
> me: oh i'm sad about sasha james actually

“Not tonight,” Sasha says, and Melanie’s heart drops to her stomach faster than her eyes can drop to the floor. So she’s misread the signals. The archival assistant  _ isn’t  _ interested in anything more than whatever polite conversation they’ve exchanged during their handful of meetings. Something that isn’t quite embarrassment and isn’t quite bitterness follows the immediate sting of rejection, but it doesn’t have time to completely unfurl within her before Sasha hurries to continue, “But, well… Friday?”

Melanie grins with a kind of exhilarated relief. “Drinks Friday?”

The smile that gleams across Sasha’s face makes the pale blue of her eyes shine like pinpricks of sky. “Drinks Friday.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“And you’re  _ sure  _ this pub isn’t haunted?” Sasha teases as Melanie opens the door for her.

“Reasonably, yeah.” Melanie grins. Oh, she’s giddy. She hasn’t felt this light and free in too long. She tries to blame it on the residual high of the fit of laughter they both stumbled into on their walk from the Institute. “Honestly, if I’d known you had so many opinions on alcoholic ghosts - ”

“Listen, I’ve heard  _ a lot  _ crazier at the Institute! I thought you of  _ all  _ people would - ”

“I’m just saying, I’ve never encountered an alcoholic ghost in my entire career.” 

They continue to talk over each other breathlessly, all smiles overflowing with giggles, as they find seats in a corner booth. They sip drinks and share a plate of chips and brush hands far more than casual acquaintances-through-work should, and Melanie  _ hopes _ with all her might that she isn’t only noticing that because she wants it to mean something so badly.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Not tonight,” Sasha whispers against Melanie’s hair. It’s been two weeks and they haven’t clarified exactly what’s going on between them, but considering they’ve ended up entangled on Melanie’s sofa she thinks it’s safe to assume it’s more than vaguely work adjacent.

“It’s okay,” Melanie says softly. She shifts to pull Sasha closer with hands that are gentle and don’t ask for anything more than Sasha is ready to give. “We don’t have to move fast. We can be and do whatever you want.” She can feel Sasha smiling against the top of her head. She tightens her own arms around Melanie in response.

“Do you want to hear the  _ definitely true _ ghost statement I read today?” she asks in a voice already lilting with laughter.

“Of course,” Melanie says, and snuggles against the other woman’s chest.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Sasha, look up!” Melanie quickly snaps a photo with her new Instax and crows with delight. “Oh my god, that’s going to be adorable!”

Sasha pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, trying and failing to look stern. “Melanie, I’m trying to focus.” She rustles the papers in her hands pointedly.

“Come  _ onnn,  _ Sash,” Melanie says playfully, walking around Sasha’s desk to bump her arm. “You’ve worked hard all week and you deserve a break.”

“Go ahead, Sasha, I can finish up here,” Martin chimes in. 

Melanie doesn’t know Sasha’s coworker very well, but in that moment she’s filled with undying gratitude toward him. She even shoots him one of the open smiles she usually reserves for Sasha alone. 

“If you’re sure,” Sasha hedges.

“Come on, come on!” Melanie grabs her hand as she stands, tugging her toward the exit. 

Walking together to the corner pub is becoming a regular Friday evening routine, and Melanie would be lying if she said that it hadn’t become the highlight of each week this past month. 

“I’ve been thinking about ghosts,” Sasha starts as they settle into their usual booth.

“You know, you might be better off as a ghost hunter, considering how often they’re on your mind.” Melanie wiggles an eyebrow at the other woman across the table.

Sasha huffs out a laugh. “No, really. I mean, we talked about haunted pubs, right? And factories and - and houses, and all of that. We always think of  _ places  _ as haunted. But the more I think about it, maybe that’s not quite right? At least not always? I mean, we never hear about a ghost alone. They’re always found by a person, aren’t they? That’s how we know about them. That’s how they’re… remembered.”

“I mean… sure, yeah, I think a person could be haunted,” Melanie says slowly. 

“I just read a statement today that really made me think about it.” Sasha launches into another story about her workday, and Melanie listens with increasing fondness as she tries to connect the dots in whatever wild goose chase her boss was sending her on lately.

On the way back to her flat, she manages to capture a polaroid of her reaching up to place a kiss on Sasha’s cheek.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Not tonight. New work thing came up, sorry. Talk tomorrow xx**

Melanie stares down at the text from Sasha and tries not to feel too disappointed. Of course this was bound to happen, Sasha has an important job and she’s warned before that it sometimes spilled into her personal life. She lingers over the ‘xx’ and reassures herself that Sasha does care and that she does want to spend time with her, enough so that she’d made plans to go out on a weeknight. Melanie is an adult and she can handle the let down.

Still, as she looks at the dozen roses she’d already arranged in a vase, she wonders if she has the patience to wait another few days to ask Sasha to be something  _ more,  _ something recognized. 

“I suppose I’ll have to,” she mutters, and begins the process of removing her makeup. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But she doesn’t talk to Sasha the next day, or the next, or even the following, despite the handful of increasingly concerned messages she’s sent. When Friday rolls around, she shows up at the Institute even though Sasha hasn’t confirmed that she still wants to go for drinks. 

She’s stopped before she can head toward the Archives by a security guard who has never been here before. “Sorry, ma’am, but you need clearance to go down there.”

“What? I’ve never needed - ”

“New precautions.” The security guard stares her down. “If you have an appointment, they can meet you here.”

Melanie tries to call Sasha, but she doesn’t answer. She returns to her flat with unsteady hands and trembling lips.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Not tonight,” Melanie mumbles drunkenly. “Get it together, King.” She stares at Sasha’s number before resolutely closing her phone without dialing, a display of willpower she hasn’t scraped together in several nights. 

She just wants to know what she did wrong. Sasha hadn’t shown any signs of unhappiness or of wanting to cut off whatever back-and-forth they’d had going. And Melanie  _ knows  _ Sasha. She doesn’t strike her as the sort to, well,  _ ghost  _ someone. She’s mature and responsible. She would have told Melanie if she wanted to break things off, right? 

Melanie scowls at her own attempts to pretend that she hadn’t somehow, without even knowing, fucked up this beautiful little chapter of her life and tells herself she’ll delete Sasha’s contact in the morning.

But she keeps the polaroids to look at when she needs to remember that she was, once, a person someone cared about. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll need that many times in the coming months.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Where’s Sasha,” Melanie hears herself saying against her own better judgment, “by the way?”

She tells herself she just wants to know if the other woman is okay. It’s been far too long to hold onto any sort of hope that Sasha might eventually speak to her again or give her any kind of second chance. This is casual. She’s let go of her emotions about the relationship they had barely touched against. She  _ really, really  _ has.

That doesn’t stop her from bristling at Jon’s blatant lie. Obviously that hadn’t been Sasha to bring her to his office. Did he think this was funny? Did he know about Melanie’s former crush? Had Sasha told him all about how they’d kissed and cuddled and whispered secrets before she’d changed her mind and broke it off through silence? Melanie storms out of the Institute and vows never to think about Sasha again.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Melanie learns the truth, much, much later, she brings Martin the polaroids because he, too, deserves to know what the real Sasha had looked like. She feels… numb. Like she’d had too much to drink and was now moving only through a buzzing haze of something that couldn’t even fully be articulated as pain. Yet.

“All that time,” Martin says in a hushed voice. He touches the polaroid almost reverently. Chokes out what might be a sob. “Christ. Sasha…”

Melanie will not cry. She will not. She’s already grieved Sasha’s loss before she even knew how truly she’d lost her. 

But knowing that Sasha had died in screaming agony while she pouted about missed calls is a worse pain than any bullet wound. 

“I wondered why you stopped coming around,” Martin is saying. “If I - if I’d thought to reach out - see… but I thought you’d only broken up or something, she… it… never was keen to talk when I mentioned you.”

Melanie shakes her head. “It wouldn’t have done anything.”

Would it have? Sasha had already been dead. Nothing could have changed that fact. Still, Melanie’s hands clench tightly when she thinks about how she could have tried to hurt the  _ thing  _ that killed Sasha. She wants to rip it apart.

“Here,” she says to Martin. “Keep them. So you can remember her. It’s what she deserves.”

She doesn’t need the polaroids for Sasha’s face to remain always in her mind.

“Will you be all right?” Martin asks.

“Maybe. Someday. I don’t know.” Melanie shrugs as she turns away. “But not tonight.”


End file.
